cent of the heat energy from a ton shoveled beneath the locomotive boiler, 10 per cent of the total in the ton. They use one-quarter of all the coal mined. Next to labor this is the greatest expense which our railroads have. This shows how great the problem is to them. Some have adopted a system of paying a bonus for the greatest distance made on a given quantity of a given coal. But this laudable effort has not met with the cooperation that would be expected from the firemen, for reasons that go far afield. Industries, especially those which generate electric power, have made similar effort to gain from their fuel its greatest potentiality, and with varying success. We can overlook the stoking of the domestic furnace as a national concern, for the amount of coal used in this way amounts to not more than 17 per cent of the national coal bill, and this whole charge could be saved, it is estimated, by giving care to the 75 per cent of our coal which is burned under boilers to make steam. Here there is a maximum figure of 13 per cent of the energy of the coal put into harness, and the average is less than 10 per cent, even in the larger plants.

In one establishment visited by the fuel engineers of this department during the war a preventable waste of 40,000 tons a year was discovered. By changes in the admission of air to the furnaces and in the "baffling" of the boilers the engineers of the Bureau of Mines are confident that they have been able to increase the economy of coal in the ships of the Emergency Fleet Corporation by 16 per cent, making 6 pounds of coal do the work of 7. If such a percentage of economy could be generally effected it would mean the saving of as much coal as France and Italy together will need in this year of their greatest distress.

COAL AND COAL.

The Government should sample and certify coal. We do this as to wheat and meat; it is just as necessary to avoid injustice in the case of coal, and it is thoroughly practicable. The public should know the kind of coal it is buying, because it should buy the coal it needs. There need be no prohibition against the mining or selling of any coal,' but coal should sell in terms of its capacity to de

In every trainload of coal hauled from the mines to our coal bins, 1 carload out of every 5 is going nowhere. In a train of 40 cars, the last 8 are dead load that might better have been left in the bowels of the earth. No less an authority than Martin A. Rooney states: "Every fifth shovel full of coal that the average fireman throws into his furnace serves no more useful purpose than to decorate the atmosphere with a long black stream of precious soot. At best one-fifth of all our coal is wasted."

The first requisite toward effecting fuel economy is to secure cooperation between owners, managers, and the men who fire the coal. Mechanical devices to increase efficiency in the use of coal can not produce satisfactory results unless the operators who bandle them are impressed with the importance of their duties.

It is not essential for the plant manager to be a fuel expert, but he should be familiar with the instruments that give a check on the daily operations. It is a mistake not to provide proper instruments, for they guide the firemen and show the management what

liver heat. Some coal that is only a pint bottle is selling as a quart bottle. And the quart is hurt by the competition of the pint. A bill to effect such fuel inspection has been drafted and will be presented to Congress. It is not a bill commanding anything, but rather gives to those who are willing an opportunity to have their product inspected and attested and thus acquire merit in the eye of the world as against those who are not willing to subject their coal to the official test tube. Coal is coal in the sense of the classic traffic classification. Coal is, however, not always coal, nor is it altogether coal when put to the pragmatic test of the furnace. If such a bill were passed it would promote the interests of those who schedule their price upon the merit of their goods and make against the hauling of slate and dirt, its storage and handling under an assumed name. The plan is not to punish the malefactor who attempts to impose upon the public a slender number of thermal units as a ton of coal, but rather to give to ever man an opportunity to advertise the number of such units which his particular article contains, thus enabling the injured public to strike against an unfair mine.

Furthermore we are to become great exporters of coal, unless all signs fail, and such certification should be required as to every ton sent abroad.

EXPANSION ABROAD.

It has been said that we have too many mines in operation, as we appear to have too many miners, if we are to maintain only our present output. Rapid expansion in the development of industry in general may justify the existence of such mines and so large a corps of workers, even with an adequate car supply and more abundant local storage facilities, which are greatly needed in almost all places, and a more even demand. If, however, this should not be so, there is a foreign demand for the best of our bituminous coals, which at present we are altogether unable to meet for lack of credits on the part of those who wish the coal, and lack of ships to carry it. England's annual production has fallen 100,000,000 tons, according to

has taken place daily. Instruments provided for the boiler room manifest the interest taken by the management toward conserving fuel. It indicates cooperation and encourages the firemen to work harder to increase the efficiency.

A second factor effecting fuel economy is the selection of fuel for the particular plant. It is not expected of a plant manager that he should be thoroughly informed as to the character of all fuels; but he can enlist the services of a man who is thoroughly trained in this field. The Bureau of Mines has compiled valuable information on the character and analyses of coal from almost every field in the United States. Information concerning the character and chemical constituents of the coal, together with knowledge pertaining to the equipment of the plant, makes it possible to select a fuel adapted to the equipment, thereby insuring better combustion. Hundreds of boiler plants operate at no greater than 60 per cent efficiency, and it would be a comparatively simple matter to bring them up to 70 per cent efficiency. The saving in tonnage would be more than the combined yearly coal-carrying capacity of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Southern Railway systems. The direct saving to our industries at $5 per ton would amount to $200,000,000 worth of coal per year.

Mr. Hoover, and the European demand next year will be more than 150,000,000 tons above her production. Whatever the world need, it can not be supplied. It is too large for any possible supply by ship, even if all necessary financial arrangements could be made, either by loan or credit. Europe, indeed, will sadly learn through this winter how little coal she can live on and how more than perilous is the state of a people who are short of power, light, and heat.

As this country prior to the war sold abroad no more than 4,500,000 tons as against England's 77,000,000, it is quite manifest that here will be a new field for American enterprise, the enterprise being needed not for the winning of markets as much as for finding ways of dealing with the larger phases of a heavy overseas trade with those who are without immediate resources.

SAVING COAL BY SAVING ELECTRICITY.

It is three years since Congress was urged that we should be empowered to make a study of the power possibilities of the congested industrial part of the Atlantic seaboard, with a view to developing not only the fact that there could be effected a great saving in power and a much larger actual use secured out of that now produced, but also that new supplies could be obtained both from running water and from the conversion of coal at the mines instead of after a long rail haul. A stream of power paralleling the Atlantic from Richmond to Boston, a main channel into which run many minor feeding streams and from which diverge an infinite number of small delivering lines-the whole an interlocking system that would take from the coal mine and the railroad a part of their present burden and insure the operation of street lights, street cars, elevators, and essential industries in the face of railroad delinquencies-thris is the dream of our engineers, and a very possible dream it has seemed to me; of such value, indeed, that we might well spend a few thousand dollars in studying it, not with the thought that the Government would construct or operate even the trunk line, but that it might so attract the attention of the engineering and financial world as to make it a reality.

To tie together the separated power plants of 10 States so that one can give aid to the other, so that one can take the place of the other, so that all may join their power for good in any great drive that may be projected-this would be the prime purpose of the plan; and from this would evolve the development of the most practicable method of supplying this vast interdependent system with more power-perhaps from the conversion of coal, as it drops from the very tipple, using the mine as one might use a waterfall, or by the development of great hydroelectric plants on the many streams from the Androscoggin to the James.

WHITE COAL AND BLACK.

This would be a plan for the wedding of the stream and the mine, the white coal with the black. "White coal" they call it in imaginative France, this tumbling water which is converted into so many forms; and a much cleaner, handier kind of coal it is than its black brother. And cheaper, for the water goes on to return again and fall once more and, forever into the pockets of the turbine which whirls the dynamo and so gathers or releases that mystery which we name but never define. Farsighted, purposeful Germany fought four and a half years upon the strength of great power plants run by the snows of the Alps. She did not rely on these alone for power, nor were they her main reliance, but they gave her a lasting power which otherwise she would not have had. And we may expect her to improve on that war-time experience for the conduct of the hard fight she is to make in the industrial field. France saved enough territory from the invader to permit her to make new adventures into this field and so to some degree offset the coal loss of Lens. Italy found that she had still left unused opportunities for hydroelectric development sufficient with the coal she could secure from England and America to see her through the war. And with coal conditions as they are in Europe we may expect a still greater push to make use of water power to turn the industrial wheels of peace. It must be so likewise here.

And it is likely that the long-pending power bill which will make available the dam and reservoir sites on withdrawn public lands and make feasible the financing of many projects on both navigable and unnavigable streams will soon have become law. We shall then have an opportunity that never before has been given us to develop the hydroelectric possibilities of the country. And this raises the question as to their extent.

The theoretical maximum quantity of hydroelectric power that can be produced in the United States has recently been estimated by Dr. Steinmetz, who calculates that if every stream could be fully utilized throughout its length at all seasons, the power obtained would be 230,000,000 kilowatts (320,000,000 horsepower). It is clear that only a fraction of this absolute maximum can ever be made available. The Geological Survey estimates that the water power in this country that is available for ultimate development amounts to 54,000,000 continuous horsepower.

The census of 1912 showed that the country's developed water power was 4,870,000 horsepower, about 9 per cent of the maximum power available for economic development and less than 2 per cent of the total that may be supplied by the streams as estimated by Dr. Steinmetz. According to the census, stationary prime movers representing a capacity of more than 30,000,000 horsepower, fur

nished by water, steam, and gas, were in operation in the United States in 1912. (This amount does not, of course, include power generated by locomotives, marine engines, automobiles, and similar mobile apparatus.) The average power furnished by these stationary prime movers was probably not more than 20 per cent of their installed capacity, so that the power produced in 1912 was equivalent to probably not more than 6,000,000 continuous horsepower.

As the estimated available water power given above represents continuous power the country evidently possesses much more water power than it now requires, so that there would be an ample surplus for many years if the power were so distributed geographically that it could be economically supplied to the industries that need it. But as a matter of fact the water-power resources of the country are by no means evenly distributed. Over 70 per cent of the available water power is west of the Mississippi, whereas over 70 per cent of the total horsepower now installed in prime movers is east of the river. Therefore unless the East is to lose its industrial supremacy it must press and press hard for the development of all water-power possibilities!

THE AGE OF PETROLEUM.

For a full century now we have been passing through different phases of industrial and commercial life which have been characterized by some form of power. First the age of steam, and then the age of electricity. We have passed out of neither and yet we have come into another age--that of petroleum. As a lubricant, it has become of such universal use that it has been called the barometer of industry, and no doubt after it has ceased to be a popular illuminant or a source of power it will live invaluable as the thing which lets the wheels go round. Its greatest popularity now arises out of its use in the internal-combustion engine, and of the making of these there is no end. It draws railroad trains and drives street cars. It pumps water, lifts heavy loads, has taken the place of millions of horses, and in 20 years has become a farming, industrial, business, and social necessity. The naval and the merchant ships of this country and of England are fitted and being fitted to use it either under steam boilers as fuel or directly in the Diesel engine. The airplane has been made possible by it. It propels that modern juggernaut, the tank. In the air it has no rival, while on land and sea it threatens the supremacy of its rivals whenever it appears. There has been no such magician since the day of Aladdin as this drop of mineral oil. Medicines and dyes and high explosives are distilled from it. No one knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Men search for it with the passion of the early Argonauts, and the promise now is that nations will yet fight to gain the fitful bed in which it lies.